John closed his laptop and sighed. Sitting in his in-box was yet another memo from headquarters asking managers, basically, to “do more with less.” It wasn’t worded exactly that way, of course; senior leadership knew everyone was tired of hearing those words. No, the memo said something about the need to get creative and invent new organizational structures and processes. And as usual, there was very little in the way of suggestions for how to do that. John shook his head in frustration and opened his laptop. “Might as well get back to my 300 other emails,” he thought.

Leadership is about learning and expanding our organization’s horizons. The world moves too fast for leaders to consider maintaining status quo. We must focus on leading positive change, and that requires innovation. This is particularly true in a time when resources are dwindling but requirements are not. To make things more challenging, large hierarchical organizations sometimes seem designed to thwart our efforts to innovate by imposition of bureaucracy, outdated policies, and entrenched ways of thinking. It’s easy to see why someone would just want to put their head down and say, “good enough.”

Being a leader, however, means not being satisfied with the status quo. We must acknowledge that despite the limitations placed upon us, we still have an obligation to serve our organization, its mission, and the people we work with. We must further acknowledge that many of the limits we face are self-imposed. How often have we found ourselves saying, “I’m just not a creative person” or, “I’m too busy getting the basics done to try to think outside the box.” While an understandable human response to difficult challenges, this self-limiting mindset serves to diminish our power to influence and serve.

In truth, creativity is not some special talent only bestowed on famous inventors and tech company founders. We can all learn to think a little differently by understanding some basic facts about innovation:

• Innovating is, quite simply, finding better ways to do things
• We find better ways to do things by asking the right questions and being open to
learning
• There are many simple techniques that can help us get out of our usual ruts and
see things from a different perspective

Framing questions more effectively is a simple tool we can all learn to use. Instead of, “How do we do more with less?” John might ask, “How do we do less?” or, “How can we expand our impact?” or, “What’s the larger purpose this particular goal serves; can we achieve that larger purpose a different way?” To say that we don’t have time to ask questions and frame things differently is like saying we don’t have time to stop at a gas station for directions so we’re just going to keep going in circles, lost. Effective leaders know that making time to pull their heads up from the email in-box and ask good quality questions is a priority, despite how challenging it may be.

Effective leaders also approach issues with the confidence that an answer can be found. Colin Powell said, “Optimism is a force multiplier,” meaning that an optimistic leader brings an energy to the work that imbues employees with the desire to serve well and leverages their influence and ability to bring about change.

Despite the obstacles our organizations may seem to put in our way, most want and need their leaders and employees to be innovative. We need to move beyond the mindset that there are too many barriers to overcome. In fact, the limits we struggle under don’t bind us but often lead directly to innovation. There’s a reason the phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” has been around for generations.

Telling someone you’re teleworking no longer leads to raised eyebrows or questions about how you’re able to make that work. It’s now considered just another way to get work done.

We’ve all heard the advantages of a telework environment:

• Increased productivity (up to 27% increase in productivity in a recent meta-study)

• Better recruiting (flexible work environment is now the #1 recruiting tool for new employees)

• Ability to respond to emergencies (Continuity of Operations in event disaster makes office spaces untenable)

• Reduced absenteeism (63% reduction for teleworkers in GSA study)

• Job satisfaction (Partnership for Public Service study found those Federal employees not given telework option were least likely to be satisfied)

Here’s what most people don’t realize: a telework environment creates better leaders. Here’s why:

• Telework requires a focus on results, and not on activities. When employees telework, leaders can’t tell how long they worked on a project, or the means by which they accomplished their tasks. All they can see are the results of the work – a completed report; a presentation; data analysis, etc. That drives leaders to focus on clearly identifying the desired results at the start of a project. It also requires a more thorough analysis of the task before it’s given to the teleworker since daily updates/subtle corrections aren’t as easy when leaders and employees don’t share office space.

• Telework requires clear identification of communications protocols and expectations; e.g. when is a phone call appropriate; when is an e-mail better; when should a meeting be held. It also reduces the number of meetings and/or requires better planning for meetings. The dreaded “let’s just get together and chat about this” time sink is greatly reduced.

• Telework requires employees to make themselves more visible. To ensure teleworkers are accomplishing their work, many supervisors ask for weekly accomplishment reports. In the interest of fairness, they often ask the same of in-the-office employees. This provides an opportunity for individuals to clearly identify their accomplishments, which makes them more visible and identifies more clearly their impact on the organization. It also makes performance appraisal time much simpler for all concerned because a running tally of accomplishments have been made.

• Telework requires enhanced responsiveness. When individuals are given the chance to telework, they typically increase their responsiveness to show that telework is effective and that they’re at their desks accomplishing their assigned tasks.
Here’s the thing about these four elements: we should be doing this all the time. Everyone wants to know what results are expected and appreciate not being micro-managed; all offices should have clearly established communications protocols and expectations; the accomplishment of employees should be open and visible; and employees should hold themselves to a level of responsiveness that meets the needs of the team.

The hidden benefit of telework is that it gets us back to leadership fundamentals, which all leaders need to focus on in pursuit of the organization’s mission and goals.

In a memorable scene from A League of Their Own, Tom Hanks is pleading with Geena Davis’ character not to leave the team, and when she protests, “It just got too hard” he responds, tersely, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

We might say the same thing about leading well through periods of organizational change. All leaders are faced with this challenge at some point in the careers—often at many points—but only a few do it with the kind of competence, resilience and optimism that inspires others to follow.

We asked leaders in one federal agency to tell us what works for them when it comes to navigating the hard transitions. Here is what they said:

• Take deep breaths and maintain your cool.
• Keep your focus on what you do for the agency, and set the example for others. What brought you here in the first place? A passion for the environment, for protecting public health, for defending our nation? It is likely that a similar passion brought your people to the organization. This is a strength to tap into.
• Acknowledge the uncertainty that comes with organizational change, both to yourself and to your people. It must be endured, and that starts with recognizing and naming it.
• Send your questions up the chain of command. Never stop asking questions. In the words of Kevin McCarthy, author of The On-purpose Person, “The quality of your leadership is determined by the quality of your questions.”
• Look to the past for success stories in dealing with transition, and share those stories.
• Constantly seek more information and share that information with others.

Lastly, remember that transition is different than change. Change is what happens externally; transition is what happens internally, the mental process people go through in adapting to the change. As with anything involving human beings, different people manage transitions differently, and at different speeds. Remember that just because some will embrace the change and get on board quickly does not mean that someone else who is fearful and resistant is being difficult. Many factors play a role, including personality type, past experiences with change, and one’s level of knowledge about and involvement in the change. Your role is to identify what kind of support each member of the team needs in order to move through his or her own transition. That’s not easy, and that’s why so many organizational change initiatives fail. Navigating the hard is what makes you great as a leader.